The dimension of the selfishness in protecting the environment

In the article “Saving Nature, But Only for Man”, the author’s thesis seems quite reasonable and his viewpoints seem very convincing. However, I feel if he based his thesis on human’s concern for themselves, he should have taken the dimension of the selfishness into consideration, namely, as he encouraged people to take action to protect the environment only when it benefits we human, this principle may lead people to preserve the environment only when it directly benefits himself. As a fact, most of the environment problems will immediately threaten the living quality of the poor, by contraries, the rich can still live without big influence. Take water pollution as an example, the polluted water which is smelly and poisonous will significantely undermine the living quality of people nearby. The poor have to bear the condition while the rich could easily move to somewhere else. Moreover, the rich are actually the group who are in charge of the projects that are harmful to the environment and who are able to support the projects that are helping improve the environment. Obivously, letting people take their own profit as the motivation of perserving the environment is not a wise suggestion as the dimension of selfishness is not controlable.